3 Padres players fans are already fed up with in 2024 season
After a flurry of offseason moves, the San Diego Padres still find themselves sitting around the .500 mark.
All signs pointed to a successful baseball team in San Diego last year. The San Diego Padres were second in team ERA, fifth in defensive runs saved above average, and above average in runs scored. Yet the club finished 82-80 and missed out on the playoffs.
The offseason was also a rollercoaster. In December, the club traded superstar outfielder Juan Soto to the New York Yankees for right-handers Michael King, Jhony Brito, and Randy Vasquez, starting pitching prospect Drew Thorpe, and catcher Kyle Higashioka. In January, the team saw All-Star closer Josh Hader sign a record-breaking contract with the Houston Astros. Then, just a few weeks before the season started, the Padres traded for Chicago White Sox starting pitcher Dylan Cease.
Yet for all of this activity, the team is still sitting around the .500 mark. Here are three Padres players fans are already fed up with in the 2024 season.
Xander Bogaerts
When the Padres signed Xander Bogaerts to an 11-year, $280,000,000 contract, the club anticipated that he would continue to be one of the elite shortstops in baseball. Bogaerts received MVP votes each of his last five years with the Boston Red Sox while also earning a trio of Silver Slugger Awards and three All-Star game berths. Bogaerts’ production declined in his first season in San Diego, with his OPS dropping to .790 — his lowest since 2017 — but the Padres shortstop had a solid year, finishing with a WAR of 4.4.
This year, the bottom has fallen out for the Aruban infielder. Bogaerts is batting just .219 with an OPS of .581, the 12th-worst among qualified hitters. He is also in the 16th percentile in hard-hit rate and the 12th percentile in average exit velocity — which indicate that this slow start is not a fluke. The Padres are paying Bogaerts $25 million a year and he is failing to live up to that price tag. Bogaerts is now on the IL with a fractured shoulder, leaving San Diego to wonder if their star shortstop will return to the diamond this season.
Manny Machado
Speaking of struggling stars with expensive contracts, Manny Machado is also enduring the worst season of his career in San Diego. Machado is batting .230 with an OPS of .641 — far below the standard of a guy with a lifetime .279 average and .829 OPS. His strikeout rate of 23.5% is a career-high and his walk rate is at its lowest level in a decade.
While his expected stats (.261 expected batting average, .418 expected slugging) foretell a potential second-half rebound for Machado, it has been a bad year for the Padres’ veteran infielders.
Tom Cosgrove
Padres fans rejoiced when the club optioned left-handed pitcher Tom Cosgrove to Triple-A El Paso on April 30th. But Cosgrove’s frequent bullpen blowups already left their mark on a struggling ballclub. The reliever allowed six eighth-inning runs against the San Francisco Giants on March 30, turning a 3-1 Padres deficit into an insurmountable 9-1 lead for the Giants while recording just one out. Two weeks later, Cosgrove put up another one-out outing, giving up three runs in the sixth inning against the Los Angeles Dodgers while earning the loss. The lefty then allowed four earned runs across 2.1 innings pitched in his final three appearances for the club before they demoted him to the minors.
For the year, Cosgrove has a 10.50 ERA across 12 innings pitched with a WHIP near 2.0 and almost four batters walked per nine innings. His WAR of -0.7 is also the worst on the team — an impressive feat for a player who has not seen the field in nearly a month.
